PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has allowed Medical Emergency Resilience Foundation (Merf), a private organisation, to continue managing the operations of Nishtarabad Government General Hospital for six more months.
A summary has been approved by the provincial cabinet according to which Merf will continue to manage the hospital till December 31, 2026. During this period, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Foundation will outsource the hospital.
“Health Foundation (HF) is a government entity mandated to outsource under-performing hospitals in the province. It has contracted out 24 hospitals and 72 more are in pipeline,” according to officials.
They said that the contract with Merf had expired on June 30 after which it had been running the facility on voluntary basis.
The government will pay Rs151 million for operational cost to Merf till December this year. Nishtarabad Government General Hospital (NGGH) started operations in 2019 through Merf with IRC funding as Covid-19 hospital. Built in 2018, it was supposed to be a breast cancer and hepatitis hospital according to its PC-I but due to the onset of Covid-19, it started operations to deal with patients affected by the pandemic.
Health Foundation will outsource the facility till Dec 31
Later, it was converted into general hospital and it started operations under World Bank-sponsored Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Care Investment Project (KP-HCIP) in 2022 as public-private partnership mode by Merf. The WB’s project ended on June 30 and the government sent a summary to provincial cabinet to allow Merf to run it for six months till December 31 2026 and meanwhile HF would outsource it.
The summary sent by health department was approved by cabinet. The summary states that the hospital is likely to become non-operational and people suffer because over the past few years, it has been developed and presently has 110 beds with 250 staffers, including 45 doctors, operating round-the-clock.
It said that over 18,000 patients visited the OPD of the hospital on average every month and being a major secondary-care public hospital, its operations were needed till it outsourcing.
It said that Merf had been managing NGGH and delivered the defined package of health services, achieved key performance indicators and complied with all applicable environmental and social safeguards requirements.
The hospital currently provides a comprehensive range of secondary and tertiary health services including 24/7 emergency services, maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH) services including BEmONC and CEmONC, general surgery, medical specialties, gynaecology, paediatrics, non-communicable disease clinics for breast cancer screening and hepatology, radiology, pathology, pharmacy and allied support services. It serves thousands of patients monthly and constitutes a vital node of public health service delivery in the urban catchment area of Peshawar.
Earlier, health department had planned to relive Merf and hand over the facility to district health officer to operate it but later on it decided to allow the organisation to continue running it and make proper arrangements through HF for its operations.
“Located in Nishtarabad area of Peshawar, the hospital has reduced burden of patients on tertiary care hospitals, especially Lady Reading Hospital, due to which the department has decided to let it work through Merf,” said officials.
They said that the hospital was also useful for suspected breast cancer patients where women underwent mammography and were sent to oncologists in main hospitals, including Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicines (Irnum). “Mammography services are not available in hospitals,” they added.
Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2026